


Bliss

by Cant_We_Just_Dance



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Infidelity, M/M, Past Infidelity, Pining, Vague Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 09:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14446131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cant_We_Just_Dance/pseuds/Cant_We_Just_Dance
Summary: Alexander Hamilton isn't the best husband in the world. He doesn't do laundry, and he forgets to pick up milk when they're out.Neither is Thomas Jefferson. After all, he isn't usually able to block out the sounds of Alexander's affairs. Everyone has different things they need to work out.





	Bliss

Alexander is upstairs, and Thomas is not. Such statements have defined their marriage from the start, and have no intention of disappearing anytime soon. The windows are open, the afternoon sun is shining onto the plush carpeting, and Alexander is upstairs. It is a simple phrase, one that would take little effort to be spoken, and yet it still stings in Thomas’s heart like the first time. His heart feels heavy, though nowadays it rarely feels light, and he does all he can to keep it from sinking down into the depths of his soul. Boils water for tea which he will forget to make, draws back the curtains obstructing the kitchen view of their backyard, and takes many a deep breath with his hands tightly gripping the edge of the table.

There was a time, not very long ago, when Thomas would force himself to ignore the sounds echoing down the stairs and into his mind. He would put in headphones, or simply leave their home, only returning once the sun had set and risen, and their friends watched with troubled expressions as Thomas woke from his spot on their living room couches. After the first few times, he resolved to get a hotel room, spare his friends the knowledge that his marriage was in shambles. It was better for everyone, that way. Thomas didn’t have to deal with obnoxious questions, Alexander wasn’t the subject of many a conversation without his participation, and everyone else wouldn’t have to think about what was happening in the master bedroom. 

He doesn’t have to ignore it anymore, though. 

Now? Now he revels in he sounds he hears. Each little sigh, each giggle followed by a hushed voice, every time they turn up the radio so no one can hear them- all of them a strange sort of music. Perhaps an Amy Winehouse song, right before her passing, when he words slurred and voice hitched in all the right places. Or maybe it was an old show tune, from the seventies, where the record crackled on each recording, and the voices sounded the way the sky looks in old movies. Somewhere along the way, Thomas had closed his eyes and tried to focus on the voice he recognized. Most days like this, the only voice he recognizes is his husband’s, but few and far between, there are moments where the other is one he has heard before.

And then he hears it. He hears the way Alexander’s name is spoken, the sheer power behind the tone, and how the ‘r’ rolls off the man’s tongue. Thomas Jefferson doesn’t get jealous. In all his life, he has never once felt the green-eyed mistress take him with the shoulders and force him to know that others could have what he did not. Instead of getting jealous, Thomas Jefferson gets prepared. When his favorite book was stolen by his older sister, he had planted a spider in the shower when he knew she would soon be needing to bathe. When he saw that the new guy in his office got more attention for his clothing, he bought a wardrobe of garishly magenta waistcoats.

When he hears his boss’s voice moaning his husband’s name, however? All he can do is turn off the stove and run a shaky hand through his thick curls. Sure, Alexander has had many an affair before, but with their boss? This wasn’t the same as always. Before, Thomas had been able to calm himself with the fact that he loved Alexander, and no one else had the man the way Thomas did. No other man, or woman, shared those longing glances in the breakroom, or the soft, stolen kisses in alleyways behind a bar, only interrupted by their own drunken laughter.

Thomas had married Alexander because he was in love. Love, as he had been taught as a small child, was to be valued above all thing, to be salvaged out of the burning wreckage, to be the one thing worth saving when all else had gone to hell. 

Alexander had married Thomas because he needed to. He needed a husband for credibility, he needed Thomas to stay with his warm embrace to assure him at the end of the day that he wasn’t a terrible person. Love might’ve had something to do with it, but after so long, Thomas couldn’t really be sure. After all, he was the closest thing Alexander ever had to love. It was no secret to him that his husband wished for their boss to be his lover, but Washington was a formidable, admirable man. His morals could have sent a monk to an early death, and his limits were set in stone- and yet he possessed such a warm smile. Washington would never go for a married man, and that was where Thomas got off. He had, truly had, what so few others could ever have.

Now, though? Now his boss was in bed with his husband, and the only satisfaction he got from his husband’s affairs was gone, and he was angry. He was not jealous. He doesn’t get jealous. So, instead of getting jealous, Thomas gets upstairs, almost flinching as the stairs creak beneath his feet, resolving to have it fixed once he was done. The hall lights are off, having not been touched since Thomas turned them off upon leaving for work, but he can see just fine. That’s probably because the bedroom lights are all on, and the door has been left wide open.

Not unlocked, not cracked open enough to let sound escape. The door is fully open, and thinking back for just a moment, Thomas realizes that it’s probably the reason he could hear everything from his seat downstairs. Alexander always shuts the door behind him, but now? Now the door is wide open and he can clearly see his husband being pounded into by their boss. How long Alexander has wanted this is not a question he needs to ask himself, since Alex moans the answer without being asked, eyes shut tightly to cope with overwhelming pleasure. 

“Five goddamned years,” Alexander pants, breathing heavily as he holds onto George’s shoulders for dear life, angry red marks from his nails along the man’s dark skin. “I’ve wanted you like this for five years, and fuck, it’s so much better than I ever could have imagined…”

“Wanted you, too,” George grunts, hands placed firmly at Alexander’s hips to control his movement. Thomas can’t even sigh in relief at not having to wonder about another thing, since his lungs as well as feet are frozen. Even if he wanted to run, or avert his gaze, he isn’t sure if he could. “Needed you for so long… You little slut, you were practically begging for it daily… The way you looked at me, touched me just enough to get the point across… Had half a mind to pull you outside and make out with you against the damn brick wall…”

“This is better,” Alexander replied, voice high-pitched as he neared his completion, biting his lower lip and suppressing a whine. “So much better, George! Fuck, yes, I-I-Ah!”

In the next moment, a few different things happened at once.

Alexander’s eyes shot open wide, and he saw his husband’s face, frozen in terror as he watched his partner of nine years be fucked by another man. Unable to do anything other than feel his heart sink, Alexander kept his focus on the man. Sure, deep down, he had known that Thomas was aware of the affairs, but the man never brought it up. Mornings after, and once the men left their home, Thomas spoke nothing of it, not even a lingering gaze on any specific thing. It was easier to just pretend Thomas was none the wiser- but now? To be so fully confronted with the fact that his husband knew, his husband had known all along? To see the years of heartbreak strewn across his expression, unshed tears welling up in his eyes? It was too much.

As George noticed Alexander’s sudden emotional change and focus on the doorway, he turned his head to see what the issue was. And then he found himself face-to-face with the man whose husband he was having sex with. For years, he had held himself back, reminding over and over again of the man before him, and when he finally slipped… Thomas was there to remind him in person, instead of as an apparition in the back of his mind.

And Thomas?

Thomas’s eyes caught the metallic glint of a wedding ring on the floor in front of him. Size nine, by the looks of it, and it seemed to have an inscription along the inside; he didn’t need to read the words to know what they said. After all, they were the same as the ones inside his own wedding band. He picked up the ring, feeling the cold metal against his palm, and used his other hand to slam the bedroom door shut.

It was time to make tea, time to book his hotel room and grab the small overnight bag he kept packed in the downstairs broom closet.

Ignorance is bliss.

Then again, so is divorce.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments fuel my keyboard.


End file.
